But generally... you would create with your policy a one-way ratchet that worked only in favor of the corporations and not in favor of the Government when Congress changed the terms of a contract.

I strongly suspect that MMS had long since been captured by the oil industry and that it had ceased to serve the public interest.

It is reasonable to assume that corporations act in a way to maximize their own economic self-interest.

Meaningful civil and criminal fines and damages are one crucial tool for ensuring that a corporation takes proper precautions to avoid tragic errors.

Congress must do whatever it can to prevent another family from having to hear that their loved one has perished on an oil rig.

It strikes me that the sunset provision accomplishes two things: one, it enables us to have a trial period...

And I would like to hear your reactions to those two thoughts about Section 4.

I think it is a promising area and one certainly that merits our inquiry and exploration.

Please assure me that you are not buying into this theory that under certain circumstances there may be a financial disincentive to a company from having a disaster means that the Government doesn't need to do any regulation to prevent…

It is hard for me to see that that is a determination that could have been made in good faith back then.

Just for illustration to you as American Senators as to what life and justice are like in Colombia, I would like each member of my cabinet to tell a story that they might have of their own personal kidnapping or the kidnapping of someone…

That is the Greenspan rule. That is exactly the theory that Alan Greenspan used to justify deregulation of the financial regulatory structure that we had.

Why is it that for something that is so complicated and so dangerous as this offshore drilling that the similar level of mandatoriness that you and I have to face with the electrical inspector in our homes doesn't apply to these giant…

I think the President's choice obviously was the right one.

I mean, if these technologies are new and unusual now, think how new and unusual they were years ago when this application was being considered.

I think your evidence shows that no matter where you go, whales that feed at the top of the food chain carry enormous loads of toxins in their bodies, even in the farthest corners of the globe.

And you agree with Dr. Payne that some of these contaminants will not only bioaccumulate in the individual creature, but for mammals through lactation they will poison the next generation in an increasing cycle of chemical loading?

I applaud the Obama administration's rapid and comprehensive emergency response to what could become the largest ecological disaster this country has ever seen.